Time to update you on the adventures of Bunessan primary school with the ranger service this year.  In late January, the older class visited Tiroran Community Forest to take part in the Big Schools Birdwatch at the feeders by the hide.  While one group was keeping an eye on our feathered friends through binoculars, others were busy dissecting owl pellets and identifying the bones of voles and mice they’d eaten, or playing games to demonstrate how different shapes of beaks are suited to finding different foods.

Afterschool nature club resumed in March with a spring walk around the local area to create story sticks with objects found along the way, and then a session on chocolate geology complete with a playground timeline, exploding volcano and different chocolate bars representing the different geological processes which have created our local rocks.

Last week it was the turn of the younger class to visit the forest for outdoor art and a poetry session with Jan Sutch Pickard.  You can read their creative writing below.

Looking forward to the next time!

 

In the Forest

Written by children from Bunessan Primary School and Jan Sutch Pickard

March 2017

 

Bumpy ground, cracky stick,

bark flaky and rough,

moss fluffy and soft,

squishy mud, dry bracken,

dead leaves like ripped silk

– the feel of the forest.

 

What can we see?

Twigs, trees, moss, broken branches, crumbly old pieces of tree,

dead leaves nibbled, wee creatures with legs, a rabbit hole, a worm,

an eagle, circling.

What can it see?

Human beings, you and me.

 

Our senses are alive here –                                       Palmo & Oscar

We feel slimy stuff and hear birds singing

and rivers flowing also,

we taste sweetness and see trees and smell air.

 

We see patterns on the bark,                                     Elizabeth & Megan

we feel that the moss is soft,

we hear birds, see a river and trees

and an animal made of moss – a hibernating bear –

we thought this could be a den.

 

I tasted salt, I touched leaves fallen from trees,       John & Finlay

we seen new plants and listened to birds sing,

found a pattern on a stick and spots on a leaf.

There is holes in the ground.

 

Dark forest, trolls, giants!                                            David & Quinn

 

Eagle, trees, moss, leaves,                                        Karys

logs, grass, breeze.

 

Tiny leaves of sorrel, tasty,                                        Katy & Lilly

big trees wrapped in moss, soft and squishy,

giants on three trees above us,

giants made of willow and moss.

 

I lie on very soft moss,                                                          Rory & Archie

I see three giants heads,

I see eagles flying high,

round and round the trees.

 

Bird tweeting, river running,                                        Jodie & Ciara

eagle swooping, tasting air.

Dark forest, giant giants,

bus shining, trees in the breeze.

Logs lying, crows cawing,

twigs snapping, soft moss.

Patterned wood, bugs crawling,

golden celandine growing.

 

I can see an eagle                                                       Libby

peering through bare branches,

sweeping from the glittering blue.

I can see big, big wings,

as big as the biggest thing.

Yay – I’m free.